The Yellow Dress
by temerity
Summary: The famous dress Belle wore in the castle wasn’t hers to begin with—a story following the previous owner of the yellow ballroom gown, and the reason the Beast lost his heart. Continues through Belle’s visit. Oneshot.


_(obviously, nothing is mine! please enjoy anyway...and review!)_

_The Yellow Dress_

If he could take it—maybe hide it away in the dark and god-forsaken nowhere of this nightmare—well, he thought, nothing could melt the ice from my heart now, not even a rose and talking teapots.

He hung the dress in one of the closets and collapsed on the bed. That scent, heavy and warm and intoxicating, lay in her shadow on the sheets. Honey, he thought, and something better than vanilla that made his senses reel in the most exhilarating way. Permanent, he mumbled, it's permanent now, because she does not love me, and she never really did after all. _I_ do not love me, and it is a wonder I'm still breathing the way I am.

The palace had been bright, once. The flowers had been bejeweled with lights in the garden, feeding on the laughter leaking from the windows. Words had come easily to his lips—like molten silver, slick and slippery to grease the ears of whomever he wanted to please.

She had a smile like glass.

Together, they were a ruthless pair. Pretty faces and empty hearts, he thought. Mannequins with agendas.

The dress, of course, had been tailored in the latest European style and sewn with the finest canary silk. It was to be for their engagement ball, he remembered with a frown. The Earth had been soft that night—full of new beginnings with the old crowd. Miranda was holed up in the library, browsing the row of his deceased mother's library added specifically for her.

"I don't like any of these books," she said, petulant. The prince laughed, threw up his hands.

"Would you like me to build you an Eden, dear girl? Would you like me to stack the bricks myself for your palace? It was my father's idea...and _this_ was mine."

He held out the dress, carefully threaded through a hanger, and her eyes lost their strange, heavy expression. She grinned, looking for all the world like a lioness pleased with a fine kill.

"Darling," she said, and stalked over. His body shivered in that strange way it did whenever she pressed herself against him. "Did I tell you that I _love_ you?"

Her voice was sickeningly sweet. The prince felt like he'd inhaled too much of her deadly perfume, but it was addicting; he came back for more, dipped his mouth to hers and drank as much as he could hold. Her hair was silk in his palms.

She walked away with a confident, merciless swing in her hips.

It was lust.

It was lust when they talked, and when they danced it was magnified tenfold. He didn't mind the way she talked down to him, or the way she sometimes went for days without speaking a word to her betrothed. He let her order the servants upstairs and down.

He let her order the beggar woman away.

The room had been too full, their hearts too hard to expand much more—and so they had tripped, half-drunk, to the entrance hall, hearts beating from wine and emotion. The guests were whirling on the dance floor in silks of every shade—but Miranda, he thought, Miranda takes the cake—the whole damn pastry factory, in fact. The shadowed part of his heart contracted with pride at having the woman other men couldn't keep their eyes from. Miranda loved being the center of attention, the literal belle of the ball and the apple of so many eyes. She was a connoisseur of power, and sipped from as many cups as she was offered.

"My Lord…the door," the butler said. What _was_ that man's name? Luminy, the prince thought, or something close enough. He'd seen the man with that French maid in charge of the laundry.

"It can't be a guest," Miranda said. "The party's already halfway over."

The prince nodded to Lumerson…Lumeras…whatever. "Open the door," he said, striding over. "Let's make this quick…"

The woman's face on the other side of the door made his stomach feel like something hot and slimy sliding down his throat. She had eyes that were a wise shade of blue, hair that was grayer than words on paper, and her face—well, it was half as informative and nearly as misused as truth was supposed to be.

Even the prince was surprised at how harshly his words grated the air. "May I help you?" he asked, staring. The woman grinned toothily, let one of her eyes roll to the side. The prince shuddered.

"Just a place to rest," she said, peering into the foyer. She looked as if she could taste the music inside, as if she'd been too long without warmth to imagine it in these chill autumn months. Her hands trembled around the handle of a basket filled with roses.

The prince waved his hand impatiently, and from behind him Miranda gave a simpering little chuckle. "I can spare some food," he said, his mind already traveling back to the ball. "We have some extra, from the ball…"  
"I can give you a rose in return," she said.  
"No. We haven't any room."  
"I know it's not much, but my heart goes with it," she tried again, and with the words she seemed to straighten a bit.

"It's _my_ engagement ball," Miranda whined in a whisper, behind the prince. "What will the guests think if we let her in?"

The old woman's eyes, half-hidden by her cloak, glinted with some strange wisdom.

"No," the prince said again. "We are tired and we have a lot to do. Go for your begging elsewhere. We don't want you here."

The couple at the doorway could only stare as the old begging woman melted away. In her place stood a confident enchantress, all glint and glittered power. She smiled, and the prince suddenly realized he had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

The first stab of pain made him double over, dry-heaving onto the polished marble floor. It was impossible to tell where the next bolt hit first. The prince curled in on himself, and at once it was impossible to tell where he began and where he ended. He was stretchingelongatingpulling_dying_, and for a moment the prince believed he'd give up the ghost in the middle of his own engagement ball, rolled up on the floor.

The prince listened in the midst of his agony. The world was clearer now, he thought, than he'd ever noticed before. He heard shrieks of terror coming from the ballroom, thought _what now?_ and worried about what the guests would think if they ran out and saw him now, half alive and breathing in that ragged way the hopeless do.

When the pain ebbed and he was able to prop himself up on one palm, the prince blinked and tried to focus on the slender figure standing at the doorway. Miranda. He let out a low moan that was more animal than human, reached out and didn't realize the paw attached to his wrist was his own. He saw her hold a hand to her mouth, as if fearing she was going to be sick—and then back away, stumbling over the fancy dress. There were people streaming into the hallway now, all buzz and chatter above his prostrate form.

The enchantress leaned down to him in a gesture all sugar and licorice, sweet and sly. "Will she love the prince now?" she whispered into his ear. "Will _anyone_ love you now?"

The prince tried to grab at her, but somewhere between finding his feet and extending his hand he fell again. And it was then that he realized he had gained claws and fur and fangs.

The prince—the Beast—let out a roar. The guests jumped back, but the enchantress simply smiled.

"You have until the last petal falls," she said, passing him the rose, "to find someone to love, and hope for their love in return. I think you'll find it harder than your _previous_ experiences."

The Beast stared at her as the world around him faded to nothing. He pushed himself up, grabbed a banister for support and leaned against it. "What…happens if the last…petal falls…?"

The enchantress allowed a smile to slide along her lips. The Beast dreaded the answer he already saw in her eyes, and shuddered as he felt the words hang on the air.

"…you will remain a beast forever."

With a movement as sweet and slow as mist, she faded away. The Beast blinked and suddenly he was all in one piece, facing the world again. The guests had vanished—they were the dishes in the kitchen now, the booms hanging in the closets—save one.

Miranda.

The Beast bent over, legs shaking in exhaustion. He raised his fearsome face and stared at her though harrowed eyes. "Miranda," he pleaded. "Miranda…"

The woman was pressed against the opposite wall, in the clothing she had first arrived in--a fact too slight in the light of recent events to be dwelled on for much longer than it took to draw in a breath. She was shaking, caught in some strange horror that he might have been able to share, if she had let him in.

Instead, she regained her senses and began to sob loudly. She sniffed and stumbled toward the door in silence that could break a heart.

"Miranda!"

The door slammed behind her, leaving the Beast in a solitary nightmare. When he went upstairs—much later, after he had learned to shuffle along in his bent form—he found the dress, neatly folded on a hanger. Attached was a note in an unfamiliar hand.

…_use it to save yourself._

It didn't take long to lose the beat of the time that had run the castle like clockwork until that fateful night. The former prince spent much of his time in the West Wing, staring at the rose suspended in a glass case and wondering how much time they had.

The dress lay dusty in the wardrobe.

And then, of course, _she_ had come, offering herself for the old fool who had stumbled onto his doorstep one frightful night.

Of course, he had accepted her proposal. But there was no hope—not yet. He would not allow himself to taste it until he looked into her eyes one winter day and saw what he had been lacking hidden there.

Love, plain and simple, in a small-town girl who was less a princess than anything he had ever seen. She wore cotton, not silk. She mumbled, sometimes, when she talked.

She had laughter like bluebells.

He wondered, sometimes, what he had really been turned into. Sure, a beast enough, with fangs and fur and an inside so twisted that he was more animal than man—but surely it was something that enchantress did, to hold him so spellbound to this young woman with a name like music.

_Belle._

And it was different, when he was with her, than it ever was with Miranda. With Belle he was uncertain—even afraid. His heart stuttered when her hands rested on his paw, showing him a bluebird, or that creature over there.

He fought wolves to save her.

When he showed Belle the library, she made him feel that everything in the world was vindicated by her smile. There were stars blinking in the sky, flowers blooming and nature thriving all around them—but there was, at the same time, only Belle. Only Belle, with her tiny footsteps and the stubborn way she narrowed her chocolate eyes when solving a problem.

Only Belle, and she was his key to all the happiness in the world.

_Use it to save yourself_, the note had read. But what if he didn't care about only himself anymore? The Beast lived in the way she spoke, acted—and he didn't mind. Not now. There were no crowds now to watch them dance, to comment on the couple, and neither seemed to care.

He left the dress, dusted and ironed, on her door.

Attached was a note to meet him at eight in the ballroom.


End file.
